Training Log Archive: JanetT

Better run technically than Saturday, though still not without errors, but still near the control circle if not within it. While course 6 (W45-54) was the same length, they went into a gnarlier area early on that I was glad to avoid. Probably had another 8 minutes of error on 3 or 4 controls, but finished 1st of 14 with a good 13 minutes ahead of 2nd place.

Parking was near yesterday's, but finish was near parking. The "finish arena" was covered partly in hip-high goldenrod (thankfully earlier runners cleared a path from the go control into finish) but also in short-bush blueberries which were in full fruit! You could just bend over and pick a handful of luscious berries (so tempting during the run in from GO, but I waited until I was done). A very nice touch and a great way to end the weekend.

FR -- 4.5 km

Middle race, W45-54 course again [though I signed up for the W55-64 course on the "long" day]. The net effect of the course was downhill to the Fundy Highlands Inn and Chalets (where some of us orienteers stayed over the weekend). I had some trouble on a few controls where I went the proper distance but had trouble locating the flag and circled the area a bit; maybe a total of 8 or so minutes of errors, which is big on a middle length course. Finished in 7th place of 16. Karen McKenna of Whitehorse had a fantastic run in this terrain; while I mostly walked because of the thicker woods and uneven footing.

The finish field had been visited earlier in the day by a Parks Canada helicopter who had had plans to do some promo filming that the NB group just learned about 2 days earlier; the helicopter had left by the time finishers arrived. :-)

Awards ceremony was accompanied by a RCMP officer (a COC tradition), and a bagpiper, brother-in-law of meet director David Ross.

FR -- 2.6 km.

COC sprint, course 3 (W45-54 again), at McLaren Pond in Fundy National Park. Before the first start all runners vacated the parking area and gathered near the start, so we couldn't see where runners went in the field around the finish, which was surrounded on three sides by the parking lot. :-) Early finishers, of course, could stay by the finish and watch later runners come in.

Good run through the first 13, with a slight bobble on 14--not going far enough into the woods and checking out another control. And the optimum route on 16 was a "hidden" route choice which I had originally considered but didn't take the time to look at the detail of the control placement (inside corner of a fenced tennis court with 2 openings, more easily reached by taking the more subtle woods route rather than the supposedly faster open field route, which required going past the flag to the opening at the far end of the tennis court fence and doubling back). I estimate I could have been close to a minute faster overall. Finished 4th, 19 seconds behind 2nd place but ~ 2 min behind 1st (Kitty Jones of Calgary).

Another excellent sprint, which made good use of the potentially confusing chalet area (2 dozen small buildings clustered in a 100m x 150m area, in which course 3 had 7 controls). Courses 4 and 5 apparently had more woods running (we had 3 of 19 controls in the woods).

After the sprint we checked out the model map area. The model map was more of a chance to get out in the terrain for the middle and long races and less a depiction of mapping style and size (printed at 1:5000 when the race maps would be 1:10000). It gave me a healthy respect for the changes brought by a resurgence in red spruce growth, with areas mapped earlier as white woods made almost impassable by shoulder-height or higher young spruce trees. I learned I really did NOT want to enter dark green, and avoiding medium green was a good idea as well.

FR says I covered 2.02 km.

Event: Canadian Orienteering Championships 2008
 

Fun sprint (course 2) at Hopewell Rocks, Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick. I'd been looking forward to this event since we decided to go to the COCs, and it didn't disappoint me. :-) The pillars of rock like that shown on their event logo were mapped to scale, along with the cliff lines at the edge of the land, and rocky outcrops covered in rockweed, a type of seaweed. The course 2 sprint took us ~ 1 km along the beach from the start with 12 controls, and then back to the starting location, visiting 9 more control sites along the way. We had 2 maps back to back in our map cases and flipped the map over at the turn-around.

It was a blast!

I had an error after the turn-around, misreading openings between rock pillars and going ~100 across a cove and having to run about that distance back to the other side of the cove where my control (13) was; about 1:25 lost covering the distance. Otherwise, I was slow to 15 (comparing split times) but attribute that to having to walk to catch my breath because I had no trouble finding the control (~10 sec). So with a clear run, I could have been about 1:35 faster, almost even with the 1st place runner, Anke Ritter of Ottawa. Finished 3rd of 12 in the 45-54 age group (55-64 ran a different, slightly shorter, course).

After the course closed but before the tide returned and they collected all the controls, we went back on the beach with our map and checked out (and photographed) some of the more interesting formations, including a cave where one of the controls had been placed.

Great job, ONB!!

After finally bailing out Glen's car (brakes, struts, inspection), I went for a run at the Pine Bush Preserve in Albany, from the Discovery Center. Started up the new trail through habitat rehabilitation* area, to red-yellow-red-blue-red and back via the kiosk. After the funny morning (showers, cold!, as the front went through) it was mostly sunny, and the cool breeze felt really nice. Taking a week off was probably a good idea. Though my glute bruise was a distraction when I started, after about 5 minutes I didn't notice it at all. Felt strong on the hills, too. This is probably as close to a tempo run as I'll do this week; this is a good per/mi time for me on trails.

*Habitat rehabilitation near the parking area. The Discovery Center is located in what was a Credit Union building, and much of the credit union parking lot has been reclaimed as pine bush habitat. There's a short, gradual ramp trail up to an observation point, probably meant to be used by the disabled. The Pine Bush Preserve people do their darnedest to try to keep the city of Albany from building (or enlarging the landfill!) all over this unique terrain.